“You done this before?” I ask. “Because that is truly a professional cuffing.”
“Yeah, I have,” he says shortly. No follow-up explanation, but why would I expect one. He’s Eight’s son.
Oscar and I heave Toper to his feet and into the back seat of the car. I have to admit the kid’s a lot more help than Brambles.
He gets in the car and buckles up. “Let’s go,” he says like he’s Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.
I think he might be having the time of his life. Which makes me feel smug. Which makes me think of Henri. Which makes me wonder if she too is having the time of her life.
Chapter Fourteen
Eight
“I ride shotgun,” Henri says to Brielle as she pushes the seat of the truck forward so Brielle can climb in the back. Shotgun? It’s such a dated expression. I wonder if Selkie realizes how much Henri imitates her.
There’s no resistance from Brielle. She has a new best friend and one she probably badly needed. Sure, she goes to public school, but she lives a fairly isolated life. I’ve never seen her with a friend at the clubhouse, which makes sense given the clubhouse belongs to Hell’s Jury and any outsider letting their kid hang out there needs their head examined. I don’t think she’s enrolled in anything a 10-year-old girl might like. Dancing or gymnastics. That kind of stuff.
I wonder if Henri is?
I think about Oscar and frown. He isn’t either. I never asked if he wanted to do something outside school like baseball or hockey.
Guilt teases me about how little time I devote to my son. Have I ever actually thrown hoops with him? Or taken him to a movie or played video games with him? Maybe. Once or twice. Not enough.
Henri watches like a mother hen as Brielle buckles herself in, then turns to me and says, “We’re ready.”
As we head into Reno, I lay out the ground rules. “You’re gonna have to come in with us because it’ll be too hot to sit in the truck and we’ll probably be an hour.”
“We could stand outside the truck,” Henri suggests.
I glance at her. “I don’t trust you not to put sand in my gas tank.”
She immediately looks interested. “What happens if you put sand in a gas tank?”
Shit. Stupid of me to introduce the topic. “It damages the fuel system.”
“Interesting,” she muses. I can almost hear her tucking the fact away in her mental bag of arsenal.
“You do that to my truck, I’ll kick your ass.” It’s so easy to forget she’s a 12-year-old.
“I wasn’t gonna do it to your truck.”
I grimace. “Don’t do it to your mom’s car either.”
She throws up her hands. “If I did it to mom’s car, she’d have to get a new one.”
The kid’s right. “With what? She spends all her money keeping you in designer shoes.”
Henri looks down at her almost-new black high-top Converse sneakers. “Gramma gave me these.”
From the backseat, Brielle says, “You have a gramma?”
“Yeah,” Henri replies. “A weird one. But she has my back.”
“Could I meet her someday?”
Henri nods. “Yeah, for sure.” She’s overlooking the fact that once this bullshit is resolved, I’ll never have to see her and Selkie again.
Disappointment is tinged with panic at the idea of not having Selkie in my universe. And Henri too, because though she’s a brat, she’s also draws me out. And she’s good at her core, the way she defended Brielle against Max. Or maybe it was just an opportunity to give the gears to Oscar’s buddy.
